By Cindy Jones Lantier
I’ve been having a hard time with forgiveness lately. While I’ve managed to forgive a few key people in my life, there was one person I just couldn’t find a way to forgive.
My brother tried to kill me twice when we were children. My mother told me she saw him put a pillow over my face when I was an infant sleeping. Then when I was 12 years old he backed me into a corner holding a butcher’s knife to my throat and drawing blood. If my parents had not come home at that moment, I believe I would have been dead. I remember my mother yelling and screaming at him but that was all that happened. Later she asked what I had done to provoke him.
He was six years older than I and was often my babysitter when I was young. I was truly frightened of him and didn’t trust in my safety when my parents were away from home. They thought if they didn’t acknowledge a problem then the problem miraculously disappeared. Mental health counseling was out of the question. Family secrets remained hidden.
When our last parent transitioned, my brother quietly distanced himself from what was left of our family. He and I were never close. I tried, though, sending him Christmas and birthday cards, and seeing him when I visited our hometown as an adult, but we never had any kind of relationship. I mostly did those things for myself, so that I wouldn’t ever feel like I should have tried harder.
He died a couple of years ago and I thought I made peace with him at that time. Boy, was I wrong!
As we came into the forgiveness lessons in A Course in Miracles recently, every time I thought about forgiveness, Rich came to mind. I tried to ignore the niggling feeling that I still had some forgiveness work to do where my brother was concerned.
In the ACIM study group I attend, I heard myself saying that I find it very hard to love the person who tried to kill me twice the way I love my dear husband. The edge I heard in my voice caught my attention!
Then came Lesson 134 ”Let me perceive forgiveness as it really is”! When I had to choose someone for the morning practice period, my brother came to mind quickly.
I thought of his transgressions, as the lesson instructs, asking if I’d condemn myself for the same actions. That made me uncomfortable because I wouldn’t want to be judged and condemned for most of his actions. For some things I thought, If I did that, I should be condemned, even though I wouldn’t want to be. But according to ACIM, condemnation is not of God, therefore it is not true.
I was guided to then think of my brother and mentally list some of his good traits. He was an extremely talented artist. He was devoted to his only child. He was funny and could tell a great story.
As I dwelt on his positive aspects, I also remembered that “hurt people, hurt people,” as the saying goes. And something profound shifted for me.
I realized that while he had a lot of positive traits, they were irrelevant. He didn’t deserve my forgiveness because he was great at the barbecue grill or because he was a steady shot — any more than I deserve forgiveness for the litany of positive aspects I sometimes try to focus on about myself.
Why do I deserve forgiveness — true, Course-based forgiveness? Not because I’m usually kind to people or I love my family. I deserve true forgiveness because I am a wholly perfect and worthy Son of God, equal to ALL my brothers in every way.
That is who I truly am and that is who my brother truly is as well.
For most of our lives, I couldn’t see beyond what his body did, and tried to do, to my own body. Even as I intellectually understood what the Course says about reality versus illusion, I was too wrapped up, too identified, with my body — and his — to really get that I’m invulnerable and he couldn’t hurt me. Didn’t hurt me.
That evening, when I went to do the evening ACIM practice period, I tried focusing on my brother again, so I could complete the healing between us. I guess I didn’t trust that a lifetime grievance could be undone in a simple,15-minute span.
As I searched my heart, thinking of my brother Rich, I realized for the first time in my life, I loved him. Him, not the positive aspects that I tried so hard to associate with him — but the true him. I don’t quite love him the way I love my husband, but I do love him, more than I ever thought possible.
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Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Should I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself. [CE W-134.18:3-5]
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